


The Answer to Everything

by loveislouder



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-13
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-04-14 12:01:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4563900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveislouder/pseuds/loveislouder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Finch/Grace collection. Taking requests.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Looking back over a lifetime, you see that love was the answer to everything." - Ray Bradbury

“I think this is it,” says Root. She sounds less shaky than Harold would have expected. Still, she seems to have been expecting this moment from the beginning, he reasons. She has resigned herself to her fate. He cannot say the same for himself.

Quickly, on an impulse he can’t bring himself to supress, his fingers dance across the keyboard in front of him.

The screen shows a crowd around the Trevi fountain, a flash of red hair visible amongst them. She is so far away and her features so indistinct that it could be anyone, but Harold is certain it is Grace. He hasn’t been able to keep an eye on her as he had before, unwilling to place her in danger again.

Yet if this is to be his end, he can grant himself this indulgence. One last wistful thought for the life they could have had, one last glimpse of the love of his life.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s now been confirmed that Carrie Preston will be in Season 5 for a flashback, at the very least, so I thought in celebration, I’d add to this collection.

“I won’t be gone long. A few days, a week at most,” Harold tells her, for the umpteenth time.

“Harold, it’s okay. Travel is a part of most jobs nowadays. It doesn’t mean I won’t miss you, but I do understand. Do whatever you need to do.” Grace doesn’t press him for details about where he’s going or why, just accepts his explanation of another “business trip” and tells him to be safe. She places a kiss on his cheek and waves goodbye from the front door.

Harold feels an all too familiar pang of guilt about lying to her, but consoles himself with the thought that there are some things it is probably safer for her not to know. And for all her promises that nothing he could say would make her run away, how could he possibly anticipate how she would react to the truth? Lies are all she has ever known, surely he is doing her a favour by not becoming the next item in the list of people to let her down.

He turns the corner and gets into the waiting limousine. It is taking him to the airport, where he and Nathan are going to the latest function in honour of IFT. Rather, Nathan is going to the function, and Harold will alternate between entertaining Will and working on a new string of code. He wants to pick up a present for Grace at some point, too.

As they draw near to the airport, he sends her a text. _Just about to board the plane. Talk soon. I love you._ He checks her reply and then switches off the phone. She is the only one who has that number. It is a way of keeping her away from all of his secrets, and more importantly, for keeping them away from her.

Nathan beams when he spots Harold, and Will nods and gives a quiet hello, the response to be expected from a teenager, Harold reasons.

“I thought Will and I were going to have to leave without you.”

“Not this time,” Harold responds, noticing that Will doesn’t react to his name, or his father’s attempt to create closeness between them.

It is not until late the next day that Harold is able to check the phone he has reserved for Grace, and he is surprised to find 9 missed calls. He frowns, and automatically tenses with worry. It is unlike her to call at all, let alone so many times. He dials her number immediately, waiting impatiently for her to answer.

After several agonisingly long rings, she does. “Hello. How’s your trip?”

“It’s going quite nicely, thank you. I’m so sorry I missed your calls. Is everything alright?”

“I shouldn’t have left so many, it was silly. Don’t worry about me.”

“Grace,” he says gently, “you never have to apologise for contacting me. And nothing that upsets you could ever be silly. Are you quite sure you’re alright?”

“Everything’s fine,” she insists, in a tone that suggests she is far from it.

“I’m not hanging up the phone until you tell me. I mean it, I’ll sit here all night if necessary.”

She takes a deep, shuddering breath, and begins. “I’m in South Carolina. My dad, he – he had a stroke.”

“Is he - ?”

“No, though a very small, and very ashamed part of me wishes I could say otherwise. What kind of a person does that make me?” She starts to cry, and he can hear her move the phone away while she composes herself. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. Do you want me to fly over? I could be there in a few hours.”

“It’s okay. I want to go home tomorrow, anyway. He’s being discharged, and I don’t want to be here any longer than I need to. I really appreciate the offer, though. It’s helped so much just to hear your voice. But that’s enough of me being a downer. Tell me about you.”

He smiles, noting that his spirits have been lifted by talking to her too, regardless of the heavy content of their conversation. Harold tells her about the beach-side view from his hotel room. He’s never much cared for the beach, but he thinks he might change his mind, just for her. He tells her about the food and the weather, about every mundane detail he can without giving too much away.

Grace listens intently, though she yawns more and more frequently. He tells her she should sleep, but she insists he keep talking, so he does. Eventually he hears her breathing slow, and when she doesn’t respond to the sound of her name, he realises she has fallen asleep. Harold wishes her goodnight and swiftly does the same.

Although there is less traffic, the return trip from the airport seems to take longer than the one to get there. Perhaps because he has someone whom he cannot wait to see.

As he shuts the door behind him, he spots two mugs – one of Sencha green tea and one of Lady Grey – waiting on the coffee table. Grace is grinning as she walks slowly towards him, but she holds him a little tighter than usual and he can feel her trembling slightly. They stand there for some time, probably long enough for the tea to turn cold, content to be together again.

“Welcome home,” Grace says eventually. There’s nowhere else he’d rather be.


	3. Unforgettable

Harold is late. Only by 5 minutes, admittedly, but he is proud of his punctuality, and he can’t fathom how the fact that he is supposed to be meeting Grace had slipped his mind. A daunting explanation rises to his consciousness uninvited, and he impatiently tries to ignore it.

He wants to be able to give Grace his full attention, but he is obviously unsuccessful, as she is part way through asking him his thoughts on the political race and whether America might finally have its first black president, when she stops and places a hand over his.

It is the lightest of touches, but it sends his senses into a frenzy. He feels suddenly more alive and hyper-aware of every point their skin connects, but Grace seems oblivious to the effect she has on him. 

“You don’t have to tell me what’s bothering you, Harold, but I just want you to know that I’m always willing to listen, and I’ll do anything I can to help.”

He hesitates, the truth feeling like something foreign and far away, but the need to share his concerns takes over and he tells her an abridged version of the story of his youth.

He imagines himself turning out the way his father had, first these little innocuous mistakes, forgetting where he’d put his keys, missing an appointment or two and laughing it off, and then the slow descent into disorientation, with more of his memories – the essence of his very self – fading every day. The prospect is terrifying, and he doesn’t dwell on it too much. He hasn’t had cause to, until recently.

He’s nearing 50 years old now, the exact age his father was when the first symptoms began. Could this be the beginning of the end? Not now, not when his life with Grace had just begun. He doesn’t want to become a burden for her, or for her to have to see him so far gone, a shell of his former self.  
He knows, and Grace tells him, that he might not have inherited his father’s dementia at all, and this worrying could be for nothing. Even if he had inherited it, there was very little either of them could do about it.

“Besides,” Grace promises earnestly, “no matter what happens, you’ll never be alone. I’ll take care of you.”

Nonetheless, over the next few weeks, Grace buys books of Sudoku and crossword puzzles and insists that he eat healthy serves of fruit and vegetables and they go for a walk a few times a week. She re-reads her copy of The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, and borrows or purchases an array of books about memory. 

One lazy Sunday morning as they linger at the kitchen table, Harold stops in the middle of reaching for his cup of tea. Grace is sitting opposite him, gazing intently at the New York Times crossword in front of her. Her hair is pulled back in a messy bun, and he can see her brows crease in a frown of concentration. She looks up, notices Harold’s gaze, and a smile lights her face.

“I’m stuck. 42 across. Computer shorthand for Portable Document Format.” 

“PDF,” Harold supplies. He waits until she has filled it in, and then adds, “thank you for all of this, the books, the puzzles, everything.”

“I enjoy books and puzzles as much as you do, so I’m really not sure what you mean,” she says, refusing to take credit.

“I mean, thank you for being unforgettable.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For clarinetgirl2427’s challenge on FFNet. Thank you so much to those of you who have commented and/or left requests. I'll do my best with them, but this idea popped into my head and needed to be written.


	4. Chapter 4

“My fiancé didn’t have any pets.”

Fear and sadness wrestled within Harold as Shane inadvertently pried into the one subject he absolutely couldn't discuss. Talking about Grace was far too painful and, importantly, far too dangerous.

He was going to buy her a dog for Christmas. She’d cried at the end of _Marley and Me_ when they’d watched it together. Harold wasn’t a fan movie theatres, as a rule. Being surrounded by strangers in a darkened room with only one or two exits made him feel far too vulnerable. He supposed it was something to do with growing up in the wide, open spaces of country Iowa. He did enjoy the odd film, usually those with a historical element, but Grace had wanted to see that one, and he would never refuse her a request.

They’d shared a small box of popcorn, which had gone mostly uneaten as Grace had sat with her eyes glued to the screen and Harold, though slightly less entertained by the antics of a boisterous Labrador, found his focus flicking back and forth from the feature to Grace’s reaction and their intertwined hands, resting on the armrest between them.

When the main character suffered a miscarriage and then depression, he felt Grace - one of the most sensitive people he’d ever known – tense in sympathy, and he gently squeezed her hand and ran his thumb along her knuckles. She squeezed back, and took her eyes off the film to give him a grateful smile.

“What an adorable dog!” She’d exclaimed as the credits rolled, and at that point, he’d fleetingly considered a puppy as a gift, but he’d been called away and had forgotten all about it until a couple of years later.

They were living together and going to get married, and a dog seemed like the perfect addition to their little family. He’d even looked into the ideal breed that would be relatively easy to train, although he was willing to be flexible, as long as they didn’t get a Labrador. Those ones seemed like a handful, to say the least. He was going to take Grace to the ASPCA on 92nd street so she could pick for herself. She’d prefer the idea of rescuing a dog that needed it, he thought. He'd imagined them taking it home, giving it a name and making it part of their lives. He’d imagined so much of the life they should have shared.

But, as he’d said, his fiancé didn’t have any pets, because he’d “died” before they could get one.

As painful as it was to talk to Shane about Nathan, there was also some pleasure in recalling their friendship. And he could reveal as much as he wanted about his best friend, because doing so posed no threat to him. The worst had already happened.

Grace, on the other hand, was very much alive and, he was achingly aware, constantly in danger because of her association with him. Any mention of her, however slight, increased that danger, and that was something he could not allow. So Harold shut down that avenue of conversation, remarkably calmly, considering how fast his heart was beating at the mere mention of her. He tried to push memories of Grace away and focus on the task at hand. It was the only way to keep her safe.

“And that’s all I’d like to say about that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Karma was one of my favourite episodes from S4, and one of the reasons was the brief mention of Grace. Apologies if the dialogue is incorrect, I was going from memory. I'm shying away from writing a Finch/Grace reunion. As much as I want there to be one in the show, I'm hesitant when it comes to my own version. So this will probably be flashbacks, or snippets of their possible future life together, for the time being. Anyway, thank you very much for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> This show has taken over my life and I am way too obsessed with this pairing. After reading that there will be a photo double for Grace this season, I thought I'd write an interpretation. I do hope that Carrie Preston comes back and has proper scenes, though... This may turn into a collection of POI drabbles because a place to rant about this show is necessary.  
> Also, Ray Bradbury is amazing and if you haven't read anything of his, get on it.


End file.
